


No Place Like Home (or, Return to Royston Vasey)

by daasgrrl



Category: League of Gentlemen (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Crack, Crossover, M/M, Multi, Other, Slash, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:36:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daasgrrl/pseuds/daasgrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John accompanies Mycroft and Sherlock on a trip North, and encounters more than he ever bargained for.</p>
<p>Warning: <b>May be offensive/squicky/disturbing on a multitude of fronts</b>. I was going to try to warn individually, but I felt I would only overlook something. While notionally a comedy, <i>The League of Gentlemen</i> is dark, twisted, and frequently tasteless, so while I don't think there's anything <i>worse</i> than already found in the show, kindly read at your own risk. Fic-wise, none of the characters suffer any permanent damage, although John may beg to differ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to the tragically non-local [](http://evila-elf.livejournal.com/profile)[**evila_elf**](http://evila-elf.livejournal.com/) for looking it over anyway. Egregiousness mine.
> 
> Takes place in some miraculous crossover loop in the space/time continuum somewhere during series 2 of _Sherlock_ and series 1 of _The League of Gentlemen_. You might want to hang onto that suspension of disbelief; you'll need it.

Having experienced an _actual_ war zone, John was always loath to make the comparison, but he suspected that for the reluctant observer some things never changed; the relentless noise, the unrestrained displays of aggression, and a strong sense of the utter futility of it all. He peered cautiously over his newspaper as Mycroft’s voice cut with increasing volume through Sherlock’s protestations. It was as agitated as he’d ever seen Mycroft get about anything, but he supposed it was understandable. The issue currently at stake was more important than some foreign peace treaty or the inner workings of the European Union. It was _family_.

"No, you really _must_ go this time,” Mycroft continued. He was standing over Sherlock, who was sprawled dramatically in an armchair. “It's a very special occasion for her; half the town is invited. If you don't attend, you know Mummy will..."

"Yes, yes, I know. She'll be upset. Can't you come up with anything original?" Sherlock waved a languid hand in the air.

"No, she'll be _very_ upset.” By this time Mycroft looked as though he were this close to jabbing Sherlock with his umbrella. “And you do remember what happened last time something really upset her? I believe it was after the unfortunate incident with that idiot Chinnery and Mr Tibbles. Not only was she devastated, she was absolutely furious. Which meant that on top of organising an impromptu pet cremation, I also had to spend the better part of a day making sure the after-effects of her _distress_ stayed out of the newspapers. I don't care to repeat the experience.”

“Those were entirely different circumstances, as I’m sure you’re well aware. You’re just exaggerating now.”

“You're coming if I have to arrange to have you forcibly relocated. You may find it less pleasant than you imagine.”

Sherlock scowled and muttered something under his breath, his previous air of assurance dissipating. It was already quite apparent to John that Mycroft really meant it this time, and it seemed Sherlock had finally reached the same conclusion. Even geniuses could be surprisingly oblivious at times.

“You’ll have to make it up to me, then.” Sherlock fixed Mycroft with a pointed glare.

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You _know_ what I mean. It’s the only good reason I’d have for going back.”

“We already agreed it wasn’t a good idea to...”

“No, you agreed. With yourself. I don’t believe I was even consulted in the matter.”

For a full minute Mycroft appeared to be engaged in a tremendous internal struggle, evidenced mostly by the deepening crease between his eyebrows.

“Fine,” he eventually managed, but Sherlock was never one to quit while he was ahead. He glanced around the room, and John hurriedly hid behind his paper again, but it was too late. He had already seen the beginnings of a smile as Sherlock looked back up at Mycroft.

"And I want John to come with us."

"Are you entirely sure that's wise?"

"I don't see why not. It’s about time you accepted things the way they are…or at least, the way they _should_ be. John? You weren’t doing anything this weekend, were you?"

The peril of being an _embedded_ observer, of course, was that sometimes one became an unwilling part of the action. John gave up on pretending to read about the hike in council rates and folded the paper away.

"Sorry, I don’t really follow. You think I should come with you ‒ with _both_ of you ‒ to your mother's seventy-fifth birthday party?"

"I’m sure she’d love to meet you.” There was something worrying about the cheerful note in Sherlock’s voice. “Besides, I think it's time you understood certain things. About us. About our family. Don’t you think so, Mycroft?"

John couldn’t avoid seeing the grimace that crossed Mycroft’s face, almost as though he could feel another toothache coming on.

"No, it's fine, really,” John said hurriedly. “I don't need to understand anything. At all. I'll just...sit here and wait for you two to get back, shall I?"

"That would be preferable, yes.”

Mycroft gave him a grateful glance, but Sherlock was having none of it.

"I'm not going unless John comes with us. You can send your suits to bully _him_ , if you like. Or if you’re going to be difficult about it, I might just stay here anyway. Because _I’d_ be perfectly safe from Mummy’s hypothetical distress. I’d be out of range, for one thing."

"Sherlock..."

"Out of…range?" As usual, John felt that he was missing something important.

Mycroft rubbed a hand over his face tiredly. "Fine, Sherlock. Fine. John, would you? It would mean a lot to me."

"I don't understand. Your mother's...what? Some kind of _baritsu_ champion? Trained sniper?"

Sherlock smirked, but it was Mycroft who answered him. "She's a little eccentric. That's all. Where we come from, well...people often are. Eccentric. Quirky, one might say."

"You aren’t from around here, then? London, I mean?"

"Goodness, no. We were sent away for our education, of course, so we acquired certain refinements of speech, but our father's roots were in the North, and that's where our mother prefers to stay. It's just as well, really, for everyone."

"So you're going to tell me you're originally from _Leeds_ or something? No, wait, you said something about a town, didn't you?"

"That's right. The nearest city is actually Carlisle, in Cumbria. It's a little place called Royston Vasey."

  
***

  
The journey up was hellish. As spacious and luxurious as the limousine was, spending almost six hours acting as a physical buffer between Mycroft and Sherlock was not exactly John's idea of a pleasant road trip. Given Royston Vasey's distance from, well, anywhere really, going directly by road was more efficient than trying to combine several alternative forms of transport to achieve the same end, but it was still a very long time to be trapped in a moving vehicle with Sherlock. He could imagine Mycroft hadn't undertaken it lightly.

Adding to the general unreality of the situation was the startling change in Mycroft. When John had slid into the car that morning he had blinked at the sight of Mycroft in a cornflower blue long-sleeved shirt and dark trousers, without so much as a waistcoat, a pocket square, or even a tie. His top button was actually _undone_. The net effect made Mycroft look considerably younger, and more like a high-level clerk than a man who ran the country on occasion. An outer garment hung from a fold-out coat hook on the seat back, but even John could see that it was of a different material from the trousers, softer, thicker. Not even a suit jacket; a blazer. It was completely disconcerting. John wasn’t sure he’d have been much more surprised if he’d found Mycroft lounging around in a bathrobe instead.

For his part, Sherlock looked much the same as always in a cream shirt under a charcoal suit, but had foregone the coat and scarf entirely. What felt like some kind of tacit dress-down agreement between the brothers was unsettling. Given the occasion, John had simply put on his best jacket over a striped shirt, and for once felt that he was doing quite well.

Mycroft had greeted him as calmly as always, but a raised eyebrow indicated to John that his initial reaction had been duly noted. More than anything else, it reminded John that today he would be entering a different kind of foreign territory.

During the actual trip Mycroft spent most of his time attached to both his laptop and mobile phone. From the sounds of it he was negotiating the finer points of some new piece of legislation ‒ John wasn't sure he should be eavesdropping, but he didn't understand most of it anyway, and knowing Mycroft, that had already been taken into consideration. To John's right, Sherlock constantly fidgeted, hummed, tapped, and was generally extremely annoying. There were sporadic bursts of activity on his phone, related to a handful of minor cases he could work easily from a distance, but in between he went straight back to more time-honoured methods of expressing his boredom. Most of it seemed directed at trying to irritate Mycroft, who steadfastly ignored him. As for John, mostly he was just _there_.

“So, remind me…exactly what am I doing here again?”

John wasn’t really expecting an answer; he’d already asked various permutations of the same question over the past couple of days without getting anything substantial from Sherlock. Mainly, he hoped Sherlock would be distracted enough to stop tapping his fingers on his knees _for just one bloody minute_.

It did work, after a fashion. Sherlock’s hands stilled, but it was Mycroft he glanced at before answering. John could almost feel the looks they were passing over his head like tangible threads, an entire conversation being held without speech. In its own way it was almost as annoying as the bickering.

“I didn’t want you to feel left out,” Sherlock said at last, looking at John in that inscrutable way of his, and went straight back to the tapping. Mycroft looked to be once more fully engrossed in the document he was reading. John gave up and went back to staring at the passing countryside, feeling none the wiser.

  
***

  
They stopped for a quick, awkward lunch in a pub in Manchester. Mycroft and John ate; Sherlock picked at his food until Mycroft snapped at him, whereupon he pushed it away altogether. Inevitably, the situation quickly deteriorated as Sherlock launched into a running commentary on Mycroft’s own eating habits, past and present, while Mycroft stared at his plate and chewed grimly.  

John looked over to the pub counter, where Mycroft’s driver was eating her own lunch in relative peace, and rather wished that he could join her. ‘Hestia’ was a petite brunette, and even in a conservative trouser suit she was as attractive as he’d come to expect from Mycroft’s staff, but that wasn’t even relevant right now. He wouldn’t have minded if she’d been a grizzled old man of seventy. He’d settle for anyone not actively trying to give him indigestion. While he didn’t have the best relationship with his own sister, they at least tried to keep up the pretence of civility when they were together.

“So will you be having pudding, Mycroft? Maybe you should wait until tonight and have ‘afters’ instead.” Sherlock’s voice twisted briefly into an ironic northern lilt before returning to its usual tones. “Or why not both?”

“Do you go back often, then?” John ventured, desperate to distract them from each other.

“At least once or twice a year, if I can manage it,” Mycroft said. “We used to both visit every Christmas, until Sherlock…decided he no longer wished to.”

Sherlock’s face was instantly the picture of outrage. “That was you.”

“No, it wasn’t. _That_ had nothing to do with Christmas. We could still have gone, regardless.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. What would have been the _point_ , if not for _that_.”

“Tradition, Sherlock. Family.”

“You’ve made it quite clear how you feel about _family_ , Mycroft. And you’ll excuse me if I don’t find quite as much solace in mince pies and turkey as you do.”

Oh, god. John had somehow only succeeded in making it worse, which was an impressive feat considering he hadn’t the faintest idea what they were going on about. While neither of them had even raised their voices above normal conversational levels, their inflections had edges sharp enough to cut. Fortunately, he was a trained soldier, and adept in handling the most difficult of conflict situations. Immediate and decisive action was clearly required.

“Excuse me,” he said, putting down his napkin, and standing so hurriedly he almost knocked over the chair. “Long trip ahead, I think I’ll just…”

He gestured vaguely in the direction of the toilets, and fled.

After taking care of business, he ducked out into the garden and gave them a full ten minutes before returning. He guessed that by then things would either have calmed down or the police would have been called; either way was fine by him.

By the time he re-entered the pub he could tell even from a distance that the tension had eased. Mycroft had relaxed his posture slightly and was leaning forward, speaking softly to Sherlock, whose face still held a sulky expression, although no more than usual. As John got closer he saw Mycroft’s hand shift on the table, and found himself momentarily distracted. He would have sworn that Mycroft’s hand had been resting lightly on top of Sherlock’s just before he’d moved it. There was nothing much in that, at least not for normal people; he and Harry still shared hail-and-farewell hugs and the occasional kiss on the cheek. A conciliatory touch on the hand or arm should be nothing between brothers, even between friends. But from what he’d seen of Mycroft and Sherlock, the closest they ever got under ordinary circumstances was sniping at three paces. It just seemed…odd.

They rose together at his arrival. Sherlock took up his usual position beside John, while Mycroft trailed behind as they headed back out to the car. John looked from one to the other, but it seemed as though they were right back to mutual disregard, and he dismissed whatever he’d thought he’d seen. Perhaps he hadn’t seen it at all.

  
***

  
It was mid-afternoon by the time they arrived on the outskirts of town, having driven through enough moorland to irritate even the most devout admirer of _Wuthering Heights_. Mycroft finally put away his laptop as they approached the top of a rise from which they could see the entire town spread out picturesquely before them. There didn’t seem to be very much of it.

As they continued further down the road, which was at this point not really so much of a road as a muddy well-worn indentation in the grass, John finally saw an actual building. It was a rather decrepit-looking structure that loomed on the right, the highest point for miles around. Two storeys of weathered stone with a slate roof, the kind that could easily have stood there for a hundred years and might stand there for a hundred more. On the facing side was plastered on two large signboards the simple legend: LOCAL SHOP.

“Thank you Hestia, we’ll stop here,” Mycroft said via the intercom. “You may take the bags up to the house. We’ll take a taxi in later.”

It was such a relief to be out of the car that John didn’t even care why they were getting out early. He stretched broadly and admired the view while Mycroft put his blazer on and retrieved a small black backpack from the back of the car. The sight of Mycroft carrying a backpack made yet another jarring addition to the day. The weather wasn’t much to speak of; the sky was grey and cloudy, but at least the ground was dry. John glanced over at Sherlock, who was standing several feet in front of the building’s doorway, eyeing it with distaste.

“Do we _have_ to?” Sherlock muttered, although not with any real conviction.

“You know how fond Mummy is of them,” Mycroft said patiently. “It’s expected.”

“Sorry, what are we doing here?” John’s curiosity had finally caught up with him.

“Paying our respects,” Mycroft said, and walked into the shop. A bell jangled somewhere as he entered. Due to Sherlock’s reluctance, it was John who went in next.

His first impression was of a dark, rather dingy space, filled with a profusion of random goods stocked in shelves around the walls, some of them spilling over onto the floor. A revolving stand of novelties stood in the middle, while on the side wall a small fire burned hesitantly in a grate. Directly in front of him was a wooden counter with an assortment of seemingly unrelated items collected in a glass-fronted wooden display case, and a small collection of snow globes sitting proudly on top. There was a narrow sliver of empty counter space for purchases; on the other side were sweet jars and an old-fashioned slicer. John smiled; he hadn’t seen a room so authentically quaint in years. He went up to the counter and began examining the small range of boiled sweets.

" _Yes_?"

John startled, and almost dropped the jar he was holding. An elderly woman seemed to have materialised from nowhere and was now peering at him intently through thick glasses, her head tilted on one side. Grey hair was just visible from beneath a knotted brown-and-white headscarf.

"Oh!” John smiled ingratiatingly. “Sorry, you scared me a little. Hello."

" _Yes_?” she repeated loudly, as though he were perhaps a trifle deaf. “Can I _help_ you at all?"

"Uh, no, it's fine, thanks,” John said. “I'm just with..."

"I haven't seen you before. Are you a local?"

"No…no I'm not, as a matter of fact. As I was saying, I'm just here with my, uh, friends..." He put the jar down hastily and indicated Mycroft and Sherlock, who were standing right behind him, but the woman's oddly unfocused gaze didn't waver for an instant. His mere presence seemed to agitate her.

"This is a _local_ shop for _local_ people," she informed him sternly. "There's nothing for you here."

To John’s relief, Mycroft finally stepped forward to the counter.

"He's here with us, Mrs Tattsyrup."

The sound of her name seemed to soothe her somewhat, but she still peered suspiciously up at Mycroft. "And who are _you_? Are you local?"

"I’m Mycroft, and this is Sherlock, remember? Mummy Holmes' boys. Sherlock? Manners."

"Hello," Sherlock mumbled.

The woman's face lit up in a glow of recognition.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course! Dear Mummy Holmes. Mi-chael. Sham-rock."

Despite his bewilderment, John couldn't quite stifle a giggle, and hurriedly turned it into a cough. Sherlock glared at him.

Mrs Tattsyrup’s face darkened. “But you went away, didn’t you? Far away. Like…like David. And I haven't seen you for...oh, such a _very_ long time. Yes. _Days_ and days and days and days and...”

"We've come back for Mummy's party. Tonight. You haven't forgotten, have you?"

"Par-ty? What is par-ty?"

"Not to worry,” Mycroft went on slowly and carefully, “I'm sure Mr Tattsyrup will explain it all to you later. We've brought you a lovely present."

To John’s utter astonishment, Mycroft took what appeared to be a snow globe out of his bag and offered it to her. "Please."

She accepted it and studied it reverently for a moment before squealing and clasping it to her ample bosom in delight. "A precious thing! Another precious thing! Edward! Edward! Look!"

Within seconds an elderly man, presumably Edward, emerged from the depths of the shop. He glared at them aggressively through his own thick glasses, but it was his teeth John found particularly disturbing. He knew that the art of dentistry was often minimal in rural places, but these weren’t merely badly kept. They looked almost…pointed.

"Hello, hello? What's going on?” he demanded. “What's all this shouting? We'll have no trouble here. This is a decent town and a local shop…” His gaze flicked back to Mycroft, and he suddenly trailed off. “Oh. Aren't you…?"

“Hello, Mr Tattsyrup,” Mycroft said genially. This time Sherlock followed suit without prompting. John thought it safest to stand behind them both and say nothing at all. He felt thoroughly out of his non-local depth.  

"It's Mummy Holmes’ boys, Edward! They're back for par-ty. They've been living in Lon-don, you know. Like David...Like David. They brought me one of these. It has a, a, turning thing in it!"

"That's called the London Eye, Mrs Tattsyrup."

She held it up to her face and peered into it intently. "I don’t understand. How can it be an eye if it doesn’t _see_? But, oh, it's _beautiful_. I have so many precious things now, don't I Edward? One, two, three, five, oh, twelvety-seven. Many!"

"Yes, Tubbs, indeed you do," Edward said, looking at her fondly. He turned back to Mycroft and Sherlock with a sterner air. “Thank you for the gift.”

Mycroft nodded deferentially. It was bizarre to witness.

“And how is Rye?” Edward went on. “We haven’t seen much of her of late. Not after that _unfortunate_ incident in the high street.”

“Well, these things happen, don’t they?” Mycroft said. “She’s doing very well, thank you. Looking forward to her party.”

“You know, you boys shouldn’t stay away for so long. Not healthy. I’d disown my own son if he ran away like you two. Still, for Rye's sake, I suppose...you don’t look at all right, though. Haven’t been keeping much company with each other of late, have you?”

That finally drew a remark from Sherlock. “Well, that’s hardly _my_ fault,” he said, clearly directing the comment more towards Mycroft than the old man.

“You’re quite right, Mr Tattsyrup. But one must work.”

“Oh, that’s no excuse. Look at Tubbs and I. We work all the hours the day gives us, and spend all of them with each other.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said slowly. “You are very fortunate indeed.”

“Well, well, never mind, never mind, you’re back now.” Edward went to one of the shelves behind him, which held more sweets, and took down a jar.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to Mycroft and Sherlock in turn, who each obediently took one. “Something to think about.”

John had that dizzying rush of confusion again as he saw that they were Love Hearts, the tablet sweets with the printed messages on. He couldn’t quite see what the actual messages were, which was probably just as well. Mycroft absent-mindedly popped his in his mouth immediately, while Sherlock appeared to pocket his.

“Anyway, we shall see you at the party tonight,” Edward said graciously, putting the jar away. “But just one more thing, boys.”

He stabbed an accusatory finger at John, who clearly hadn’t managed to escape notice after all.

“Who is _he_?”

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, but Edward hadn’t quite finished.

“Is he local?”

  
***

  
When they finally emerged, Mycroft was on his phone within seconds. John practically dragged Sherlock off to one side.

“Okay, what was that?”

“John?”

“God knows I’ve met some pretty strange people trailing around with you for the past year, but they were something else. And they’re actually _friends_ of yours?”

“Not ours. Mummy’s.”

“That’s completely beside the point. And there’s another thing. People actually call her _Mummy Holmes_? Really?”

“What am I supposed to say? She was very proud of us when we were growing up. Not without reason,” Sherlock said, with a trace of defensiveness.

“Well, that makes it perfectly normal, then.”

“Is something the matter, John?”

It was the genuinely puzzled look Sherlock gave him that made John pause. No, _everything_ was the matter – couldn’t Sherlock see that? John’s mind was already spinning from a few minutes in this place, and Sherlock was acting as though it were all perfectly ordinary. Although if these were the kind of people Sherlock had grown up around, that would probably explain quite a lot. However, he’d always thought Mycroft was at least halfway towards normal. Whatever that was.

“Barbara will be here shortly,” Mycroft said, walking back to stand beside Sherlock, who nodded in acknowledgement. To John, he added, “She runs the cab company. Or to put it more accurately, the cab, singular.”

“And for that matter,” John continued, reluctant to let go of his rant too soon. “Who _are_ you and what did you do with Mycroft? What’s with the…blazer? And the _snow globe_?”

It was a completely unprovoked attack, but Mycroft seemed to register no more than faint surprise.

“John? Is something the matter?”

It turned out that the only thing more annoying than getting that head-tilted-puzzled-innocent-concern routine from Sherlock was getting it in stereo. John raised both hands in surrender and walked off to collect himself. He was aware that Mycroft and Sherlock were now conferring in low voices behind his back. But if there was something or someone wrong here, it wasn’t _him_. He had to believe that for his own sanity.

Although when he turned around, he immediately found cause to doubt himself again. He was just in time to see Sherlock retrieve the heart sweet from his pocket – from the pastel shade of purple it could be nothing else – and press it into Mycroft’s hand. Their fingers brushed, and a look passed between them in a way that suddenly made John deeply, inexplicably uncomfortable. Mycroft put the sweet into his mouth, a little more slowly then he’d done with the first one, while Sherlock watched him with apparent fascination. John cleared his throat more loudly than necessary, and they turned towards him, the spell broken.

“Cab’s coming, I think,” he said, pointing down the hill.


	2. Chapter 2

The hot pink cab was at least a foot narrower in the beam than Mycroft’s car had been, which left John wedged awkwardly between Mycroft and Sherlock as it started off. All John could see of Barbara was a rippling wave of dark brown hair, a flash of gold earrings, and a bright floral blouse. The smell of perfume and cigarettes permeated the cab.

“Haven't seen you in these parts for a while, Mycroft. Where are you off to now, then?”

Barbara’s voice was shockingly deep and raspy, and even to John’s ears it was immediately apparent that Barbara was perhaps not _quite_ what she seemed, at least from behind. However, Mycroft appeared completely unfazed.

“Just drop us at Swan Hills estate, if you wouldn’t mind. We're just home for Mummy's birthday, Barbara, as you know.”

“Yes, I’ve heard little else for a week. Everybody’s talking about it. Bought a new dress just for the occasion, I did.”

“How lovely.”

“You don’t know how hard it was to find something that didn’t bulge up too much around the crotch. I had to go for one of them full skirts this time round. When I finally get the op over with I’m going to buy something really slinky. Maybe in stripes.”

John found himself transfixed by Barbara’s hands where they rested on the leopard-print steering wheel. They had short red painted nails and were covered with an assortment of gold rings as well as a great deal of fine, light hair, which became coarser and darker where it continued down her arms. Curiosity got the better of him, and he glanced up into the rear-view mirror in order to catch a glimpse of Barbara’s face, only to find her looking directly back at him. He had a general impression of long dark eyelashes and bright red lipstick, and then she smiled and gave him a wink. Thoroughly embarrassed, he ducked his head away.

“And who’ve you got there with you, then?” Barbara asked sweetly; or at least, that seemed to be the intention.

“A friend of Sherlock’s, from London,” Mycroft replied.

“Is he one of them, you know, detectives, too?”

“Not at all, he’s a doctor, in fact. Doctor John Watson.”

John smiled weakly and raised his hand in a non-committal wave. Barbara gave him another brilliant smile, this time from over her shoulder.

“Hello, John. Staying in town long?”

“Um. No. Not really. I’m just here for the party.” _Although I have no idea why._

“That’s a pity. You look like a real sweetheart. And a doctor, too – you must be so clever. Tell me something. With me op coming up, I’m a bit worried about maybe not having quite enough skin left down there for a _proper_ vaginal lining – I was circumcised, you know. Aren’t many done round here, and they made a right hash of it. Doctor Mekos says it’s better to take any extra skin from the colon, because it’s already _mucosal_ , but he says if I don’t like the idea he could take it off my hips instead. I figure I’ve got a bit to spare from there, I wouldn’t miss it.” Her laugh rumbled through the car.

“Oh, um…” John gave in to the sudden urge to draw his knees together and cross his legs tightly. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious, but he could almost feel Sherlock’s amusement from beside him.

“So what do you think, then?”

“It’s just that…um, I’m not really a surgeon,” John managed gamely. “More into general practice, really, that kind of thing. So I don’t have any experience in your particular, uh, procedure. I suppose it’s up to you.”

“But what would _you_ do? If you were me?”

John looked desperately over at Mycroft, but his phone had chimed moments before, and he was engaged in checking the screen. Instead, John settled for nudging Sherlock sharply with his foot.

“Barbara,” Sherlock interrupted smoothly, but John could see his mouth was twitching at the corners. “John is here as our guest, not as a consultant. I’m sure Doctor Mekos has your situation completely under control.”

“I suppose you’re right, Sherlock,” she sighed. “They do say he’s the best there is.”

Deeply relieved, John put a hand on Sherlock’s arm and gave it a squeeze of sheer gratitude before leaning back in the seat again. It was, however, entirely unexpected when Sherlock returned the gesture, which ended with Sherlock’s hand covering his own as it rested on his knee. It was fairly inconspicuous, though, and considering how edgy he felt, John was happy enough to let it stay there for the moment.

“Slight change of plan, Barbara,” Mycroft broke in. “Could you drop us at the butcher’s instead? Mummy just texted me about picking up some last-minute things.”

“No problem, love. I thought she’d have people for that, though.”

“I suppose they’re all busy preparing.”

Pocketing his phone, Mycroft spared them both a glance, missing nothing. He showed no particular expression, but within seconds John felt his other hand being surreptitiously claimed as well, this time from where it lay beside his leg. It was a gesture even more unexpected than Sherlock’s had been. John looked across from one to the other nervously, but they were both now steadily gazing out of opposite windows, seemingly completely uninterested in John’s opinions on the matter. Still, he felt more reassured than annoyed by the contact, so he did nothing about it. It was all…fine. Confusing, but fine.

"So how've you boys been getting on, all right?” Barbara inquired. “Still seeing a lot of each other in London, are you?"

“Oh, a fair bit,” Mycroft said.

“Not in the way you might think.”

Sherlock shot Mycroft a sharp look, and John felt Mycroft’s hand tighten on his in transferred irritation. Barbara was clearly either used to the tension between the brothers, or just not particularly observant.

"It's nice though, isn't it, that you've always got someone. I wish I had someone. But with me people are a bit, well, they worry it's going to be like unwrapping a present, and then not knowing what it is, do you know what I mean? They worry they won't know what to do with it, neither. Puts people off at times. But with you two, at least you always know just what you're getting, don't you? It's nice. Kind of romantic, when you think about it."

John might not have been a patch on either Holmes, but he wasn’t an idiot, either. The disquiet that had been building since this morning was beginning to nag quite strongly at him now. It was nothing concrete, though, nothing you could point at or put on display. Just shared looks and pastel sweets and words that only really made sense if you looked at things in a certain way. He looked down at the hands covering each of his own. Mycroft. Sherlock. They were brothers, so of course people would generally expect them to be close. However, there seemed to be something there that barely skirted the line of decency. John had thought he’d known them well enough, but seeing them back in the place they called home, he wondered.

“Here we are,” Barbara said cheerfully.

Although when he was no longer pressed up quite so closely against them, he found that he rather missed it.

  
***

  
The sight of the high street was immediately reassuring to John. There was nothing at all strange about it; it looked just like something one would expect to find in a hundred variations throughout small towns in England. Neat double-storey pale brick buildings rose on either side of a wide road; shopfronts with assorted businesses carried painted signage in varying states of repair. It was fairly busy, but not crowded; people walked along in comfortable ones and twos with carry bags and dogs on leashes. It all felt very solid and dependable, which was exactly what John needed after the weirdnesses of the day. He did notice an odd poster on a nearby telegraph pole that read: “Have You Seen My Kleptomania?” together with a graphic of a grasping hand and a local phone number, but dismissed it.

The butcher’s – H. Briss & Sons on the exterior, carcasses hanging in the window – initially seemed deserted. A buzzer sounded as they entered, and a man quickly emerged from a back room, wiping his hands on his apron. His face appeared to hold the beginnings of a grin, but it instantly hardened as he recognised Mycroft. They were of a similar age and height, but the butcher was much more heavily built. He had frizzy ginger hair, mutton chop sideburns, and a grizzled look that gave his face a slightly sinister cast. Mycroft had drawn himself up to his full height, and they faced each other over the meat counter like combatants on a field of war. It was clear that there was no love lost between them.

“You have a package for me, Briss?” Mycroft’s tone could have frozen nitrogen.

“Lovely to see you too, Mycroft.” The butcher’s face wore the trace of a sneer as he reached down behind the counter. “Mummy’s little errand boy.”

John saw Mycroft’s hand clench tightly into itself, although he gave no other sign that he had heard. Briss came up with a package wrapped tightly in butcher’s paper, its outline visible through the clear plastic bag. His rough hand slapped it onto the counter.

“That had better be ordinary meat,” Mycroft said, eyeing the package with distaste.

At that point the butcher glanced over towards the doorway, his gaze skipping lightly over Sherlock and coming to rest on John. John had faced trained assassins, serial killers, and looked down the barrel of a loaded rifle, but the butcher’s gaze still made him distinctly nervous. Then the man smiled at him, showing a mouthful of terrifyingly stained teeth, and for a moment John actually wished he had brought his service weapon. Mycroft might have been powerful in his own way, but being stared at by this man felt like tripping over a piece of unexploded ordnance in one’s own backyard.

Having assessed and dismissed John, the butcher turned back to Mycroft. “I think that’s between me and Mummy, don’t you?”

“My mother does not require any more of your so-called ‘special stuff’, Briss. Not now, and not ever. What you sell to the rest of the town is your business, but not to her. Do you understand?”

“Or you’ll do what? Bring down bleedin’ MI-5 on me?”

“Try me,” Mycroft said.

They stared each other down for a long moment while John held his breath. Then the butcher broke into a harsh, unpleasant laugh.  

“Don’t get yourself all excited, I’m just having a go. It’s a nice bit of liver. For her cat. The _new_ one,” he added with a grin. “Shame about the other, eh?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business.”

“Oh, everything that happens around here is my business,” Briss said. “Worked out well for Matthew Chinnery, though, didn’t it? I suppose she felt sorry for him, after everything that happened.”

Mycroft’s mouth was compressed into a thin, tight line. He looked as though he were restraining himself from speech with some effort. Instead, he reached out and picked up the plastic bag ‒ with the air, John thought, of someone being forced to clean up after his pet.

“Or didn’t you know about that?” Briss continued. “Maybe if you condescended to come back more often, you’d keep up with these things, Mycroft. I for one always like to know where my regulars are getting their _meat_. If you know what I mean.”

His tongue flicked in and out in a suggestive, predatory manner. It became instantly clear to John that even Mycroft had limits to his public calm and he’d apparently just reached them. Even Sherlock took a single step forward, then stopped. Although it didn’t look like Mycroft was about to do anything so vulgar as to actually attack Briss, fury nevertheless radiated from him.

“Shut up, Briss!”

Briss smiled, and graced them all with a triumphant wink.

“And by the way, if you ever get tired of that pretty brother of yours, you could hand him over to me for a while. I’d look after him properly.”

“Oh, would you now?” Sherlock inquired sweetly, before Mycroft could speak. He had left John’s side and moved to stand beside Mycroft, so closely that their shoulders were touching. Mycroft glanced at him with a look of surprise.

“I’m sure your wife would have something to say about that,” Sherlock went on, holding Briss’ gaze fearlessly. “Or at least she’d do a lot of _lowing_ , I imagine.”

Briss’ eyes narrowed. “You notice a bit too much for your own good, Sherlock. Always have done.”

“Why, thank you, Hilary.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

John briefly considered the implications of all the things he’d just overheard before promptly deciding he was in no way prepared to pursue it right now. He felt very strongly that it was best to make a move before things turned ugly. Uglier.

“Oh my, look at the time – I think we really have to be going. Right, Mycroft?” he interrupted brightly.

He walked forward then and took the bag firmly from Mycroft’s hand, stoically ignoring the weight of their combined stares. To his relief, Mycroft and Sherlock accepted his lead quietly, and followed him out without more than a final backwards glare at Briss.

  
***

  
John emerged breathlessly onto the street, clutching the parcel.

“Well, that was fun,” he commented to no one in particular. “Now what?”

“One more stop, at the Dentons. I’ll have Hestia pick us up from there, I think. It’s not far,” Mycroft said, pointing up the street. He took the parcel from John and stowed it in his backpack, appearing to have regained most of his composure.

Mycroft then set off at a brisk pace, obviously one intended to forestall any further questions. For someone who spent half his life in offices or being driven around, he seemed in surprisingly good shape. John trotted after him, wishing for Sherlock’s longer legs. Sherlock kept pace with John, but his usual need to explain things at length had apparently deserted him; he seemed far more interested in studying their surroundings, probably evaluating the changes since his last visit. Questions span around in John’s head, but there would be time for that later, when he could sit somewhere and collect his thoughts properly. Not that he was entirely sure he wanted to know all the answers.

It was now late afternoon, and some of the businesses looked to be already tidying up shop in preparation for closing. They passed a news-stand, where an imperiously plump woman with frosted pink lipstick was buying a handful of pens from a tall beatnik type dressed in black. In front of the stand, a large wire-covered signboard for the _Royston Chronicle_ pronounced: “BRIAN MORGAN’S BREATH STINKS”. It was amazing what seemed to pass for news in these parts.

Farther down the street, there was a joke shop with a humorously risqué display of phalluses and plastic breasts. In its doorway, the hugely fat, one-armed proprietor stood haranguing a spotty, dim-witted-looking youth in a Fair Isle knit jumper. The latter’s main crime seemed to be that of actually looking into the window. John felt vaguely sorry for him, but was in no mood to intervene, and hurried on by. Soon after, they passed a boarded-up building with a bright yellow movie poster pasted onto its graffitied brickwork. It featured what appeared to be six grossly deformed sea lions stuffed into little jackets, and was bizarrely titled “THE FULL MANATEE”.

They passed charity shops and dress shops, a small church, and a pathetic-looking café or two. By this time John was torn between demanding they stop for a cup of tea and a biscuit, and wanting to get Mycroft’s errands over and done with as quickly as humanly possible. He was beginning to feel like the White Queen, and not just because of all the running around. The sheer surrealism of the place was taking its toll on him, wearing down his defences as surely as Sherlock had done over the past year. If twenty men dressed as red and black playing cards had suddenly come running around the corner, he felt he would barely have given them a second look. He did, however, do a double-take at a  tattered sign on a phone box that read: “Suffering From Urinary Incontinence??? Earn £££££’s in your spare time! 04184-588747”, although only to mentally add it to the list of Things Never To Inquire About.

As they reached the end of the high street, the buildings began to take on a more distinctly residential air, and the traffic cleared almost completely. Only one vehicle passed them during the rest of the walk, a battered white van advising John to “PUT YOURSELF IN A CHILD”. John wondered if they’d really thought that through properly. Its windows were rolled down, and the occupants appeared to be quarrelling. He hoped it was about changing their motto.

Soon afterwards, the road began to slope gently uphill, and they rounded past a large job centre building before reaching a collection of two-storey detached houses in pale brick with tidy wood trim. Mycroft announced that they were almost there, and he indicated the third house along. While it looked more-or-less identical to its neighbours, John was immediately struck by the curious collection of pottery that littered its front garden.

“You mean the one with all the frog statues on the lawn?” he asked.

To his astonishment, the casual question caused Mycroft to stop dead on the footpath, still two doors away, and turn to address him urgently. “They’re _toads_ , John. All of them. Do remember that, please.”

“Uh…okay, but they’re just statues. Close enough, isn’t it?”

“No,” Sherlock said from beside him. “While both belong to the Order _Anura_ , true toads are of the family _Bufonidae_.”

“I don’t even want to know how you knew that,” John said. “Or why it matters.”

Before he could receive any kind of response, the door of the Denton residence flew open and a tall, thin man exited with some speed. He ran down the driveway, turned right, and dodged to avoid what appeared to be a frog, no, _toad_ -shaped missile that flew past his head from the still-open doorway. Porcelain shattered on the road. This was followed by what appeared to be a pair of shoes, hurled one after the other. The man successfully managed to avoid both, but then ran straight into Mycroft.  

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” he said, and then took a better look at his victim. His already pale face went even paler beneath the thatch of fine blond hair as recognition took hold. He looked back at the house as though deciding between the lesser of two evils, but the door had already shut.

“Matthew,” Mycroft said, in that pleasant tone of voice that John associated with trouble.

“Hello, Mycroft,” the man said, smiling nervously, shifting from one stockinged foot to another. He glanced behind Mycroft, and his face brightened just a little. “Sherlock.”

“Fancy running into you here. Or rather quite the reverse, in Mycroft’s case,” Sherlock said, sounding amused. “I suppose this means we should have thought to bring Harvey a replacement toad.”

Matthew looked away uncomfortably, glancing at John. His manner was incongruous with his appearance; he looked to be around Sherlock’s age, but his soft-spoken air made him seem considerably younger. Sherlock breezed on with introductions.

“Matthew, this is John, who specialises more in the human line of things. John, this is Matthew Chinnery, our local vet.”

“Amongst other things, apparently.” Mycroft looked meaningfully at Sherlock, who ignored him.

John had already managed to make the connection for himself, but he smiled and murmured appropriate pleasantries.

“I learned so much from following Matthew around when we were younger, even before he became a proper vet,” Sherlock told John. “Basic anatomy, blood spatter patterns, the appearance of corpses following various causes of death. Only in animals, of course, but all still remarkably instructive.”

“Now, Sherlock, that’s not very fair…” Matthew seemed torn between pleasure at Sherlock’s enthusiasm and acute embarrassment.  

“You’re too modest, Matthew. Your record is _unparalleled_.”

Matthew did not look too happy, for reasons even John thought he understood by this point.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you all tonight,” Matthew said, looking anxious to be off.

“Yes, about that.” Mycroft’s expression had remained decidedly frosty throughout. “Since you’re attending, it seems Mummy has forgiven you, then.”

“It was an accident, Mycroft. You know that. I never even touched…Mr Tibbles.”

“Not directly, no. You merely knocked my mother over while she was carrying him. While riding your bicycle. Which then fell on the cat. And I don’t think I need to remind you of what happened after _that_.”

“Well, you can’t blame her for being _upset_ …”

“I don’t. But because she broke her glasses in the fall and began to wander around dazed and in distress, half the high street had to be shut down for the day. Emergency services. _Clean-up crews_. And there were tourists in that day, too. From _Manchester_. You can’t imagine the difficulty in trying to keep it out of the national papers from 300 miles away.”

“I've said I was sorry. Many, many times.”

“Yes. But what you’ve completely failed to mention since, was…now you’re _courting_ her, Matthew? Really?”

Matthew’s transition from ‘nervous’ to ‘terrified’ was swift and impressive.

“How did you…? _She_ was meant to tell you. Tonight. Not me.”

“What exactly happened between the two of you? And I don’t mean that literally.”

“Nothing! I was the worst affected that day, of course, and I didn’t have anyone at home to take care of me while I…recovered, so she took me in for a bit. And then one thing led to another…”

Mycroft made a warding gesture with his hand, accompanied by an elegant moue of disgust.

“You do realise how old she is,” he added.

“Age doesn’t matter to me. She hardly looks it, anyway. And I stay well away from…Boots.”

“That’s not the point. It’s entirely inappropriate.”

“You’re hardly one to lecture to me about inappropriate relationships, Mycroft Holmes.”

As sweet-tempered and unassuming as Matthew had seemed at first glance, it appeared he possessed an unexpected layer of steel after all. It did make a kind of sense to John that anyone with Matthew’s reputed track record who was still actively attempting to practise veterinary medicine must undoubtedly have some deep inner core of strength to draw on. Mycroft appeared mildly taken aback, but whether from Matthew’s words or the sheer surprise of his retaliation it was difficult to say.

“I believe he has you there, _brother_ ,” Sherlock added with a mischievous smile. It was clear that the idea of Matthew’s current entanglement with their mother didn’t bother him nearly as much as it did Mycroft.

Mycroft opened his mouth and shut it again, glaring at Sherlock all the while.

“So as I was saying, I suppose I’ll see you all tonight, then,” Matthew said firmly. Mustering his remaining dignity, he walked back the way he had come, retrieved his shoes from the pavement, and got aboard his pushbike. They all watched in silence as he rode away.

John finally spoke. “I’d just like you both to know, for the record, that I am not _actually_ stupid. So I’m going to ask you to clarify this for me right now: what exactly is going on between the two of you? And _I_ don’t mean that literally, either. A rough outline will do.”

“We must go in ‒ we’re very late already,” Mycroft said, and headed up the driveway to the Dentons' door, Sherlock at his heels. Resigned, John fell into line, although at this point he felt entitled to demand at least fair warning.

“And what are these Dentons like, then? Anything else I should know? Apart from the toads.”

“Quite an ordinary family,” Mycroft said. “Mother, father, two young girls, twins. Mummy is particularly fond of the latter. She calls them her little oracles.”

“So…they’re fairly normal?” asked John, a tiny note of hope in his voice.

“Fairly,” Mycroft said. “Unless it’s their Nude Day, of course, but fortunately that’s not for another week.”

“I’m sorry I asked.”

  
***

  
The sound of the doorbell’s chime had barely died away before the door swung open, and a woman stood beaming down at them. She was tall and thin, with elegant features and a mane of flowing auburn hair, looking much like something Botticelli might have painted if he’d been having a bit of an off day. Despite the shapeless blue dress and oatmeal-coloured cardigan she wore, she carried herself like a queen in her best finery.  

“Valerie!”

Mycroft’s face lit up at the sight of her, and they actually embraced, after a fashion. John heard the low snort of derision from Sherlock.

“Hello, Mycroft, how lovely to see you. Eighteen minutes after you _said_ you would be here, but no matter. Do come in. Quickly, now. Hello, Sherlock. Hello...” Her brow creased in uncertainty.

“John,” Sherlock supplied.

“Hello, John. Pleased to meet you.”

“Oh… yes, likewise. Hi,” John said, feeling awkward. A couple of hours here, and he’d already forgotten how civilisation normally worked.

There was a slight bottleneck in the front porch as John followed them inside, and he realised it was because Mycroft had stopped there and was taking his shoes off, placing them neatly side-by-side against the wall, under an old barometer. Bewildered, he looked on as Sherlock did the same, placing his own pair next to Mycroft’s. Adapting to circumstance, John bemusedly saw to his own as Mycroft and Sherlock disappeared into the hallway. Anxious not to get left behind, he stuffed his shoes hastily into the small gap between Sherlock’s and an existing pair. When he straightened up, he found that he was being glared at by a tubby, bespectacled man wearing beige trousers and a burnt-orange polo-neck under a fishing vest.

“Hello there,” the man said, giving John the kind of smile that looked like it was really only for show. Then he cleared his throat noisily, and jerked his chin at John’s footwear, which appeared to be offending him. John followed his gaze, not quite comprehending at first, and then he slowly knelt back down and straightened his shoes out, adjusting the gaps along the wall in order to accommodate them properly. When he looked back up again, the man grunted at him in satisfaction. John thought he looked rather like a toad himself.

“Thank you,” the man said at last, and held out an imperious hand. “Harvey Denton. In this house we like to keep things organised.”

John shook his hand and introduced himself in turn.

“Yes, I quite understand,” he added. Actually, he didn’t, but that was nothing new.

He followed Harvey down the hall, quietly marvelling at the décor. In much the same way the local shop had seemed embalmed in a century long past, this house, too, seemed to be stuck in another era. Only this was one where browns and greens and oranges in large, bold patterns seemed perfectly matched to each other, at least according to the taste of its inhabitants.

In the living room, Mycroft and Sherlock were already seated on either side of Valerie on a green-and-white flocked settee. Valerie was holding up an entire sheaf of tea towels that Mycroft had apparently just presented to her.

“They’re colour-coded,” Mycroft said, looking tremendously pleased with himself. “I thought you could always do with another set.”

“Oh, how _lovely_ ,” Valerie said. John studied her face carefully for traces of sarcasm, but she seemed genuinely pleased. She began to look through the pile, admiring the individual tags.

“And how are the toads, Harvey?” Sherlock inquired from his seat, as Harvey and John came over to join them. John perched himself very carefully on an armchair as Harvey waved at him to sit down. Fortunately by now most of Harvey’s attention was fixed on Sherlock. “I see you just lost one this afternoon.”

“Yes,” Harvey said dolefully. “ _And_ he chipped one of the ornaments as well. Dreadful man. We’ll be holding a small funeral tomorrow, if you’d like to attend.”

“Oh, I’m afraid we’re just in town for the night, aren’t we Mycroft?”

“Quite.”

“Have you had any new ones in recently?” Sherlock went on. “I could do with a refresher. All those delightful toxins.”

Harvey looked extremely pleased by the question. “Well, I did recently acquire a Cane Toad from Central America. A fine specimen, but I had the devil of a time getting it through customs.”

“Excellent,” Sherlock said, rubbing his hands together, and rising from the sofa. “Shall we go take a look at it?”

“Sherlock.” There was a clear warning note in Mycroft’s voice.

“What? I’m just going to _look_ at it, all right? I’m not going to get _high_.”

“Sorry… _what_?” The question burst out of John before he could stop himself, and he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t regret the answer.

“The Cane Toad is one of the group of psychoactive toads,” Mycroft explained sourly. “The chemical _Bufotenine_ , secreted by the toad’s skin, is classified as a Class A drug. Which is, as you are doubtlessly aware, the same class as heroin.”

“You needn’t concern yourself, Mycroft,” Harvey said. “I realise Sherlock may have had those little _problems_ some years ago, but I assure you that nowadays I permit _no one_ to lick my toads.”

 _Thank god for that_ , John thought, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Would anyone care for some tea?” Valerie said brightly, standing up.

“Thank you, Val, but toads first, then tea,” Harvey said.

“Very well. I’ll bring your cups downstairs for you. Mycroft, John?”

“That would be lovely, Valerie,” Mycroft said.

“Parched, thank you,” John said. By this point he was actually quite desperate for a cup of tea, and hopefully a biscuit to go with. He somehow felt that everything would make more sense afterwards.

“But, um, just one thing first,” he added. Sherlock and Mycroft might have both possessed super-human bladder capacities, but for John it had been several hours between trips. “D’you mind if I just use the loo?”

There was a simultaneous sharp intake of breath from Harvey and Valerie. Valerie in particular looked stricken.

“What? What did I say?” John asked, baffled. He looked at Mycroft and Sherlock, but they seemed unwilling to meet his eyes.

“Of course,” Valerie said, after a very long pause. “Harvey, perhaps you’d just like to go with John and explain the rules…”

  
***

  
“…and one last, very important thing. Whilst you are using this bathroom, under absolutely no circumstances may you attempt to score an own goal using the hockey stick of love. Do you understand?”

“I’m…sorry?”

“I refer, of course, to extracting the vanilla crème from the Swiss roll of self-pleasure. Milking the venomous snake of desire,” Harvey expounded.

He made some indicative hand movements, but John had already grasped the finer points of his injunction.

“Right. Fine. Yes. Absolutely not,” John agreed. “Now, if that’s everything, do you think I could possibly…use the toilet please?”

“Of course,” Harvey said magnanimously, and finally swept from the room.

John looked around the bathroom and sighed. He’d already forgotten which towel was meant for hands.


	3. Chapter 3

When he returned to the living room, he found Mycroft and Valerie had moved from the sofa and were drinking tea at the kitchen table. As he saw them sitting in profile together, he was struck for the first time by the striking similarities in their angular features. He was fairly sure that there were no Holmes sisters. Were they related in some way? Distant cousins, perhaps. In this place it seemed as though anything might be possible. Sherlock and Harvey had disappeared, presumably to commune in a non-oral fashion with the toads. John slipped into the empty seat, and nodded his thanks as Valerie poured for him from a toad-shaped china teapot.

“We really would like to take the girls to see London one of these days,” Valerie said wistfully. “But it’s so far. And dangerous, too. One hears so many stories.”

Mycroft smiled, patting her hand gently, but did nothing to disabuse her of the dangers of London – John thought that from his unique perspective it probably didn't seem an unreasonable assumption. He was fascinated, too, by Mycroft's continuing display of solicitude towards Valerie. He clearly adored her. There must have been something about Valerie and her rigorously controlled life that Mycroft secretly yearned for. As far as Mycroft was concerned, she was clearly  _the_ woman.

“And where _are_ Chloe and Radclyffe?” Mycroft asked. “I haven't seen them yet.”

“Oh…I think they’re out in the back garden somewhere,” Valerie said vaguely.

“No we’re not,” two voices chorused from directly behind John, causing him to almost choke on his sip of tea. Mycroft’s cup clattered into its saucer. Even Valerie looked momentarily startled.

“Girls, what have I told you about that?” Valerie said.

“We weren’t sneaking, mummy. We’ve been here for _ages_.”

“Hello, Mycroft,” one of them said solemnly.

“Hello, John,” the other continued.

“Did Mycroft and Sherlock kidnap you?” they inquired of John in unison. The rather sinister question was completely at odds with the innocence of their matching floral-print dresses and sweet, freckled faces. Not only that, but the prospect didn’t even appear to bother them; it seemed merely a matter for curiosity.  

“Er…no,” John said, although now he came to think of it, it didn’t feel like they were that far off. “At least, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because if they asked you to come back home with them it must mean they like you.”

“ _Really_ like you.”

“Not the friends kind of liking, either.”

“They wouldn't do that for just anyone.”

“Only if they wanted to go to bed with you.”

“So if you _wanted_ to come here with them…”

“…does that mean you like them too?” they finished together.

John looked desperately to the adults for assistance, but none was forthcoming. Valerie was smiling beatifically at all of them, while Mycroft looked on with an expression that suggested only a kind of polite interest. Which meant that John was just misinterpreting things, then. Children that young couldn’t _possibly_ understand what it sounded like they were implying. Could they? Regardless, the whole line of questioning was making him extremely uncomfortable.

“Um…” John said. “I’m not entirely sure this conversation is appropriate for little girls.”  

“Don’t be silly,” Chloe – or was it Radclyffe? – continued.

“After all, we know all about Mycroft and Sherlock already.”

“They’re in looove.”

“Since forever.”

“They just fight.”

“A lot.”

John glanced over at Mycroft, who had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.

“So would you sleep with them if they asked you to?” concluded Radclyffe-or-Chloe.

“I’ve…never considered the matter,” John said. His cheeks were positively burning.  

“Yes, you have,” they insisted together.

By now he was fairly certain that they weren't talking about the _restful_ kind of sleep, and yet it still seemed pointless to deny it. The twins had a relentless certainty to them that made Sherlock seem positively diffident in comparison. And there was only one of _him_. Not that John was actually having this conversation, anyway. At all. He was just...humouring them. “Um, maybe?”

“But would you only do it with one of them?”

“Or both?”

John supposed it would be considered rude to actually strangle them in front of their mother, but he felt like his head was about to explode. “Look, could we just change the subject, please? So, how old are you, Chloe?”  

“I’m Radclyffe.”

“ _I’m_ Chloe.”

“Why don’t you just answer the girls, John?”

Mycroft was smiling at him, but there was a genuine flicker of anxiety in his eyes.

_Oh, god._ John held Mycroft’s gaze for a long moment, then swallowed, hard. Everyone was staring expectantly at him now, while his mouth seemed to have declared functional independence from his brain.

“Well, both of them, I suppose.”

The twins glanced at each other and smiled.

“That’s good.”

“Isn’t it Mycroft?”

“Yes, thank you, girls. You’ve been most unexpectedly helpful.”

“We know,” they said, and skipped off.

John watched their retreating backs until they were out of the room, then turned back to Mycroft and Valerie, dreading the inevitable fallout. However, they had already returned seamlessly to their conversation. Valerie was fretting genteelly about her visiting nephew Benjamin, and how difficult it had been trying to make him remember a few simple household rules regarding behaviour and organisation. Mycroft was tutting sympathetically, patting her hand again. After his recent experiences, John’s own sympathies rather lay with Benjamin, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead he sipped his tea and listened, deeply thankful that neither of them seemed inclined to question him on anything he might have just said.

***

They were once again seated in the back of Mycroft’s car, which was now winding its way smoothly through town in a generally upwards direction. Outside, the sun looked like it was just beginning to contemplate shutting up shop itself.  

“So how long has this been going on, then? Meaning…the two of you.”

John had finally found his confirmation that Mycroft’s and Sherlock’s primary ongoing romantic attachments were apparently to each other, but even now he could scarcely believe it. He’d known that the Holmes brothers lived by their own set of rules, but this wasn’t some deliberate flouting of society’s conventions for the sake of it; it was a total negation of them, as though they didn’t even exist. Although here, in this place, John could almost understand why; whatever their eccentricities, Mycroft and Sherlock were still stunningly normal in comparison to most of the people he’d met so far.

Even worse, though, was realising that it didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have. In the same way that John knew you weren't supposed to _miss_ the horror and danger of war, he knew very well that discovering your flatmate was shagging his own brother should be cause for disgust, or at the very least, alarm. Not...whatever it was he was feeling now.

“There’s never been anyone else,” Mycroft said, which wasn’t really an answer, but John supposed it was the best he was going to get. “Nor did I ever expect that there would be. Until you came along.”

He gave John’s left hand a gentle squeeze. On John’s other side, Sherlock had taken hold of his right, but in contrast to Mycroft’s calm stillness Sherlock’s fingers continued to move restlessly across John’s skin. Things had changed greatly from the morning. The antagonistic tension between the brothers had mostly dissipated, only to be replaced by something that seemed to flow like a slow, prickling current through all of them, looping from Mycroft to Sherlock and back again. John had no idea what to do with it, or where it might ground itself. Whether it would grace him with welcome heat and light, or simply burn him to ashes.

“Married to your work.” John turned to Sherlock, gently mocking.

“What was I supposed to say? Besides,” and here the edge returned to Sherlock’s voice, “it was completely true in London. Mycroft has his own ideas about _decency_ and _propriety_ , don’t you, brother dear?”

“So while I’ve known you, you never…?” At least there hadn't been some obvious clue that John had missed.  
  
“No,” Mycroft said. “Too much risk. Only on the occasions when we came back home together, for a time…”

“And then later, not at all.” Sherlock’s hand tightened around John’s with misdirected grievance.

No wonder Mycroft had been so unusually well-informed on the subject of Sherlock's sex life, or the lack of it. The tension was back again, the air charged with it. What had changed, though, was that now John didn’t feel as though he had to put up with it.

“All right, stop it, you two. I just wanted the history, not a full-scale re-enactment.”

Mycroft sighed. “Given our respective careers, we thought it best…”

“ _You_ thought it best,” Sherlock emphasised. John gave him a warning look, and he subsided.

“I thought it best that it should stop altogether,” Mycroft continued. “But then Sherlock refused to come home at all. Not even for Christmas. Which often meant that I needed to stay in London to watch over him. He blamed _me_ for his refusal, of course. And Mummy…”

“…was very upset. Yes, I got that part,” John said. “And now I really think you need to explain about ‘Mummy’ as well. Because given what it sounds like she’s capable of, I probably don’t want to get caught in any crossfire. What does she do, carry a taser in her purse?”

“No, nothing like that. She would never hurt anyone deliberately. Well, not unless they truly deserved it. Mummy is…well, on this particular sub-scale of time she’s celebrating her seventy-fifth birthday this year, but she’s rather older than that.”

“How…old?”

“Very,” Sherlock added helpfully.

“Edward and Tulip, who run the local shop, are thought to be over seven hundred years old. Mummy is…even older. She hasn’t always lived _here_ , of course.”

John had become fairly adept at believing impossible things by now, but this was a new one. The most unnerving thing was that Mycroft seemed absolutely serious.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” John said lightly, skating along the cusp of belief and disbelief, “but she’s not some kind of…I don’t know, giant spider, is she?”

That drew a chuckle from Mycroft. “Who shops in the high street and is quite fond of cats? Hardly.”

“You’ve heard of Medusa,” Sherlock said to John, with a hint of his usual impatience.

“Of course. Snakes for hair, gaze that could turn men to stone, that kind of thing.” John turned his head to stare at Sherlock, who continued to look completely, implacably straight-faced. “No. Absolutely not.”

“You’re right, of course, that would be ridiculous,” Mycroft said. “If for no other reason than that she was killed by Perseus a very long time ago. But Medusa had two elder sisters, Stheno and Euryale. Who were – are – immortal.”

“Rye,” John said. What John had heard of the latter name was, ‘Yu- _rye_ -alee’. And he still remembered Edward from the local shop, asking after ‘Rye’. Which at this point could really only mean one thing.

“Short for Euryale, yes.”

Up until the day he’d met Sherlock, John had never seen any reason to doubt the truth of his own reality; he wasn’t a particularly excitable or fanciful person, and strongly felt that the way he saw the world was more or less the way it _was_. People lived, and died, whether in hospitals or on the battlefield. In between there were football games and news headlines and endless cups of tea and the occasional spot of washing. It was all very practical and sensible.

However, since meeting Sherlock he’d been thrust into some parallel universe of conspiracies and secret codes, of super-criminals and murderers and obscure alleyways of London he’d never known existed. So it had seemed impossible to imagine that this trip would show him anything stranger than all the things he’d already seen and done. But today had proven him wrong. At every turn it had felt as though the world as he knew it was constantly tilting and re-aligning, minute by minute, around him. Every time he found a small point of balance, however unsteady, it simply shifted again, leaving him flailing for purchase. He’d thought he was coping well, all things considered.

However, at this latest absurdity, John finally began to laugh. Helplessly and hysterically. He couldn’t help it. It was the final straw in what had already been a day of insanity piled upon insanity. His brain simply rejected it outright; in fact it was now furiously attempting to recast _everything_ he’d experienced today into a form which he could accept. It was the world’s most elaborate practical joke. Or he actually _had_ gone insane, and was quietly gibbering to himself somewhere in a padded cell. Or this was the most surrealistic waking dream ever, and any second now he would wake up and go downstairs to accuse Sherlock of slipping a hallucinogen into his evening cup of tea.

Yet for all that, his senses told him firmly that none of the above was the case; he could smell the faint leather scent of the car’s trim, see the orange streaks of sunset through the tinted windows, and while Mycroft and Sherlock may have been jointly and incestuously crazy, they were clearly solid and breathing and _right there_ on either side of him. He was further aware that they were trading concerned looks over his head, and it made him laugh even harder. Tears were actually streaming down his cheeks, and he had to wrench his hands free of both of them to wipe them away.

“Right,” he said at last, still chuckling. “Thank you. Yes, that all makes _perfect_ sense now. Well, about as much sense as anything else in this place.”

“John?”

Sherlock’s exceedingly cautious tone set him off again, and it was a full minute before he managed to get himself back under control enough to continue.

“So your mother – and let’s be perfectly clear about this – can turn people to stone. That must have made for a fun childhood. I’m bloody surprised Sherlock’s still walking around, for one thing.”

“A gross exaggeration,” Mycroft said, looking as though he were still deeply concerned over John’s mental stability. “The effect is only temporary, usually controllable, and can be almost completely mitigated with the use of glasses tinted in a particular hue. While we were growing up she did do her best not to use it for purely disciplinary measures, although I can’t say it _never_ happened. More problematic are situations out of her direct control…”

“Meaning if her cat gets killed, the glasses get broken, and she goes around town hysterically freezing people until someone manages to stop her.”

“Crudely put, but essentially accurate, yes.”

“Oh, god. And you two?”

“What _about_ us?” Sherlock said.

“We are, as far as can be determined, entirely human,” Mycroft said. “Mortal. Although we may live longer than most.”

“Pity, I bet you’d fit right into a Greek pantheon somewhere. Especially given...well, the two of you. That part's almost traditional, I think. But hang on a minute - I thought I heard somewhere that you were _French_ on your mother’s side.”

“That’s a myth,” Sherlock said.

***

The Holmes’ ancestral home was oddly disappointing. John thought that subconsciously he’d been expecting some massive estate with perhaps a suit of armour or two and a resident ghost. Instead, it was a substantial but relatively cosy-looking manor house surrounded by a low brick wall and a slightly unkempt cottage garden. His ideals were further dented when the door was opened by a cheerfully garish bleached-blonde woman wearing a bright print top under a pale blue apron. Judging by the roughness of her manner and the implement she waved playfully at them, she appeared to be a cleaning lady in the late stages of dusting.

“Hello, boys, how’ve you been keeping? Oooh, just look at _you_.”

“Hello, Iris,” Mycroft said. After a moment’s thought he extracted the now rather squashed package of liver from his bag and handed it to her. “Could you look after this, please? Mummy wanted it for the cat. Everything under control inside?”

“Oh, sure,” Iris said, tucking the package awkwardly under her arm. “She’s got all these people in black-and-white organisin' things for her. It’s like bein’ overrun by penguins. Well, come in then, she knows you’re here. I see you’ve brought your lad up with you.”

“He’s Sherlock’s flatmate, Iris. Not his…houseboy.”

“So you’ve got a housekeeper now, then.” This was directed to Sherlock, who paused for reflection.

“Not exactly a _housekeeper_ , no.”

“But then who does all the shoppin’ and cookin’ and cleanin’ for you down in London? I can’t imagine you doing much of it for yourself.”

Sherlock glanced over at John with only a small twitch of his mouth.

“That’s only because he’s completely hopeless,” John protested. “I’m not his ‘lad’!”

Iris smiled sweetly at him, but John could see the pity in her haggard face. “Of course not, dear.”

Once inside, Iris disappeared, presumably to the kitchen. The three of them stood in the foyer and waited. While of modest dimension, the space nevertheless had an air of quiet opulence. It was decorated in dark wood panelling with polished brass accents, and the back wall was dominated by a broad curving staircase leading off to left and right. There was a thick circular rug and oil paintings in deep hues and two weathered stone sculptures standing on plinths beside the newel posts of the staircase. To John’s eyes the latter resembled relics salvaged from ancient ruins. Under the circumstances, perhaps they were.

John could hear music, too, filtering through from a nearby room; perhaps one of the organisers was doing a sound check on the night’s playlist. While John would have anticipated something more in keeping with his surroundings, such as a nice string quartet, what he could actually hear was a thumping bass beat and a deep male voice growling something about a ‘ _voodoo lady_ ’. He did hope it wasn’t an omen.

He looked up as a woman finally appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed entirely in black. She smiled delightedly as she recognised her visitors, and began descending swiftly towards them. “Mycroft! Sherlock! You’re here at last.”

"That's...‘Mummy’?" John had just time enough to whisper to Sherlock, his tone conveying his disbelief.

Despite her reputed age and the fine network of lines on her face, the woman’s hair was dark and glossy, and curled about her face in ringlets in much the same way Sherlock’s might have done had it been longer. Mycroft had explained earlier that the snakes were _also_ highly exaggerated, but from the way her hair seemed to shift and flow independently in the light John felt he could see how the idea might have come about. That much was relatively unsurprising. However, he had not expected she would be so _tiny_. He suddenly felt foolish for having harboured so much trepidation about meeting her. Even in heels, she looked like she would only come up to his eyebrows.

"We have our father's height," Sherlock muttered.

“You don’t say.”

At the foot of the stairs, Mycroft and Sherlock moved to flank her dutifully. They had to bend down a considerable way to kiss her on the cheek in turn, Mycroft with slightly more good humour. She embraced them both with apparent warmth, resembling not at all the icy matriarch John was expecting. However, he suspected that she could nevertheless be terrifying, if she so chose.

John had kept a discreet distance, not wanting to interrupt the little family reunion, and was glad he’d done so as their voices dropped away slightly in discussion. A parliament of Holmeses. Mycroft and Sherlock mostly blocked their mother from view, but John could still hear the rise and fall of her voice. At one stage they all glanced over briefly at John, but not in a way that invited him to join them. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what they were discussing. After that, she appeared to be mostly remonstrating with her sons, and at one point she reached out to both of them and took their hands in hers. Finally, they all appeared to reach some kind of conclusion, and she stepped back, waiting.

Mycroft and Sherlock turned towards each other, both looking somewhat disgruntled, but when Mycroft brought his hand up to touch Sherlock’s face, he didn’t flinch away. Then Mycroft leaned in and kissed Sherlock perfunctorily. On the mouth. Sherlock barely responded, and it looked like one of the least satisfactory kisses in recorded history, but something in the pit of John’s stomach still twisted at the sight.

“Much better. There’s my _good_ boys,” Mummy said, stepping forward again.

“I said we’d made up,” Sherlock said. “This _display_ is unnecessary.”

He glanced over guardedly at John, who immediately pretended he wasn’t really paying attention to proceedings.

“I’m sure your friend doesn’t mind. Or you wouldn’t have brought him home, would you?”

She broke away from her sons then, and finally came towards him with a brilliant smile.

“Hello, John.”

“Mrs Holmes.” He resisted the vague but nagging urge to kneel, and settled for shaking her proffered hand, holding it in both of his.

“Mummy, if you like, especially under the circumstances." John began to wonder exactly what he'd gotten himself into, but she at least seemed pleased with him. She reached out and patted him gently on the cheek. "I’ve heard so much about you. Well, actually I haven’t; my boys tell me so little nowadays. But I feel as though I know you already.”

John felt her gaze raking him from top to bottom; by now he was familiar with the way Sherlock looked at people, but in her case it was much more than that. He swore he could actually _feel_ it, a keen wave of interest that washed straight through him, sifting and examining his very thoughts. As amazing as Mycroft’s and Sherlock’s talents were to the uninitiated, he began to suspect now that they were only really pale, _human_ imitations of her own. Mummy’s eyes were darker than either of her sons, and seemed to be a flickering mosaic of colours, shading between blue and steel grey. They also seemed to reflect rather more light than one might have expected. John found himself staring down into them as though hypnotised, although as far as he could tell he was still perfectly capable of movement.

“Mummy. Your glasses?”

“I haven’t forgotten, Mycroft,” she said, turning away briefly, and John shook his head, dazed. “I’ll put them on just beforehand. I do so hate the tinting. It makes everything look orange.”

“And now,” she said, smiling at John. “I expect you’ll want to spend some time with my boys before dinner.”

***

The bedroom was easily several times the size of a normal room; almost as large as Baker Street’s living and dining areas combined. It held a king-size bed, already turned down, a writing desk and chair, wardrobe, two settees angled to each other in the corner, and a large coffee table. There was an old-fashioned wash-stand against the facing wall and a small linen cupboard beside it. It was very nice indeed. It was also extremely – singular. Their three overnight bags stood in a neat line against the wall. John considered them in silence. He didn’t want to know what Hestia must have thought, or if someone else had been called into service for that particular duty. Although he’d heard Mycroft tell Hestia she was free to go off and visit her brother Tony, so she wasn’t exactly a stranger here, either. If she was like everyone else in this place, she’d probably understood the implications of everything the Holmes brothers had been doing well before he did.

“Is everything all right, John?” Mycroft asked.

“You planned for me to end up…here, didn’t you? From the very beginning.”

“Well, yes, of course. More or less. Did you want your own room? We just thought that under the circumstances…”

John sat down heavily on the bed, marring its pristine surface. “No, it’s fine. I just…I _still_ don’t understand any of it. _Why_ you want this. Or me. When you already have…”

He broke off with a vague, helpless wave of his hand. No one answered him, so he just sat and watched as Mycroft took off his blazer and hung it carefully in the wardrobe. At the same time, Sherlock shrugged off his own jacket and threw it on the settee, drawing a disapproving look from Mycroft which was duly ignored. Then Sherlock finally set down beside John.

“Fortunately,” he said. “You don’t need to understand. You just need to accept it.”

He leaned in towards John then, a hand sliding across John’s palm, his wrist. John’s heart raced, and he had just enough time to think _oh, god, this is actually happening, it really is_ , before Sherlock’s mouth closed on his. He’d thought about what it would feel like – of _course_ he had – but the reality was warmer and softer, and for a time took away every coherent thought he might have had left.  

The bed shifted again as Mycroft sat down behind him, wrapping his arms around John. His mouth, firmer and more forceful than Sherlock’s, nuzzled into the side of John’s neck, moving up slowly to just below his ear. The concentrated attentions of two Holmeses was a force to be reckoned with, and John began to feel light-headed, reduced to panting breathlessly into Sherlock’s mouth.

“God, wait a minute,” he said, pulling himself away, letting himself lean back slightly onto Mycroft, who graciously accepted his weight. “I’ve got it now. You’re trying to _kill_ me.”

Sherlock frowned, which John found unaccountably amusing.  

“I assure you that’s not the case,” he said. John felt the twist of Mycroft’s smile against his neck.

Perhaps in retaliation, Sherlock then shifted his attentions to Mycroft, who turned his head away from John to meet him. This kiss seemed to be much more satisfactory than the last one, and being caught between them only made it better. John reached out for Sherlock, eager to reacquaint himself with the warm solidity of him, and he trailed his fingers down the front of Sherlock’s trousers, tentative, exploratory, feeling almost as awkward as a teenager. As well as he knew Sherlock by now, this was still very much uncharted territory. His fingers stroked gently over the heat and curve of him, and he heard Sherlock moan softly into Mycroft’s mouth. The sound drew his own gasp from him.

He continued his slow discovery as Sherlock shifted up to onto the bed so that he was kneeling beside John, reaching around him to begin unbuttoning Mycroft’s shirt. Mycroft mirrored him in a complicated dance of fabric and fingers that somehow still accomplished its purpose. This time both items of clothing simply ended up on the floor, and the expanse of Sherlock’s pale skin before him was enough to make John’s heart pound and desire pulse in his groin. He was likewise fascinated by the sight of Mycroft stripped down to flesh, something previously beyond the scope of his imagination. He reached back to run his free hand over Mycroft’s chest, down to the small, soft curve of his belly. This time he turned his head sideways to Mycroft, and claimed an unexpectedly tender kiss from him as well. Another first, in a day filled with them. John was completely hard now, eagerness overcoming uncertainty, and he squirmed as Mycroft began to fondle him from behind, pushing repeatedly into Mycroft’s hand.

Sherlock gave Mycroft another kiss, and then as though by unspoken agreement both brothers turned their attentions to John. Mycroft apparently had custody of his upper half, Sherlock his lower. Although there were a few tricky moments where John thought he might actually fall off the bed as they fought over control of their respective hemispheres, they quickly managed to dispense with everything he’d been wearing. The remainder of their own clothes then followed in a manner clearly designed more for efficiency than titillation, but John was still utterly transfixed by the sight.

Before long, John was stretched out on the bed, turned sideways into Sherlock with Mycroft behind him once more. The sensations were incredible. Sherlock’s mouth was back on his, and this time he could press the entire length of his body against Sherlock’s, their legs intertwining as he rubbed himself shamelessly against Sherlock’s belly. At the same time Mycroft was pressed close behind him, his cock digging obscenely into the cleft of John’s arse, his breath warm against the side of John’s cheek. They moved together in a rough, breathless rhythm, until John thought that he could probably come, soon, just from this. If he could just use his hand for a little extra friction and, _oh, yes, just like that_. But Mycroft’s hand was suddenly around his wrist, holding him back.

“Not yet,” Mycroft said, and John almost whined with frustration. God, he was sounding just like Sherlock.

His punishment was being temporarily abandoned as Mycroft manoeuvred Sherlock over and down on top of him instead. Perhaps Mycroft just wanted Sherlock to himself for a bit, and who could blame him? John contented himself with stroking his cock lightly and watching as Sherlock rocked back and forth between Mycroft’s legs, their mouths on each other in a way almost as combative as passionate. However, the intimacy, the familiarity of it, was breathtaking. Their bodies seemed to align perfectly against each other as though shaped to fit after many years, and the sounds of their pleasure in each other were soft but unmistakeable. Even knowing how unreasonable he was being, John couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of jealousy. With their attentions fixed on each other like that it was almost as though he didn’t exist.

However, his resentment was forgotten soon enough when Sherlock finally pulled himself away and motioned John to sit up against the headboard. He pushed John’s knees apart and then, without warning, bent over and took John into his mouth. John jerked and gasped and made some very undignified noises before being able to lean back and focus properly on what Sherlock was doing. In the meantime Mycroft had managed to extract the necessities they had obviously brought with them, and his fingers were already slick with lubricant. He glanced over at John as though to make sure he was paying attention, and then slowly, deliberately, began to open Sherlock up with his fingers. John found he could barely breathe, especially when Sherlock began to push back against Mycroft’s hand, moaning around John’s cock.

Then his brain briefly ceased to function altogether, taken up with the sight of Mycroft stopping to give himself a few more firm strokes before pushing into Sherlock in one smooth thrust. That made Sherlock lift his head up from John, gasping, his eyes wide and unfocused. Instinctively, John leaned forward to kiss him again.

John didn’t remember any of this being up for discussion at any stage, and he wondered if they had planned it down to this level of detail. Knowing them both, they might well have. The thought made him shiver with need, made him want, _god_ , _so very much_ , to feel everything at once. It was far, far too soon for him to demand anything from them, but he already wanted to know so much – what it would be like to fuck Sherlock, or to ride Mycroft’s cock until he was sore. His head spun with arousal and desire.

Things began to grow hazy after that, in a blur of heat and need. He remembered Sherlock going back down on him again, John trying to warn him how close he was, before he could hold back no longer and came helplessly into that incredible mouth. Breathing hard, recovering, he could hear Mycroft’s grunts of focused exertion, and saw his face go blank and slack with pleasure as he partly collapsed over Sherlock. Lastly there was Sherlock, desperately working his hand over his cock until he finally came in low, soft whimpers.

Afterwards they lay there together for an indeterminate time, lilies strewn on the battlefield. John felt sticky and satiated, indifferent to both the mess and the increasing need to get up, shower and dress as soon as possible. Eventually, however, he began to come back to himself. He first became aware of Sherlock lying sprawled between them, somehow managing to take up far more space than his physical size would seem to require. John elbowed him good-naturedly as he tried to reclaim some territory.

“Hey, don’t get too comfortable. You’ve still got your mum’s party to go to yet.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think she’ll miss us, will she Mycroft?” Sherlock still looked thoroughly relaxed and untroubled.

“ _Sherlock_.” Mycroft didn’t.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but for once offered Mycroft a conciliatory kiss, which was graciously accepted. Then he shifted onto his side towards John, who immediately took advantage of the extra space. When Sherlock kissed him it was sweet and lingering, and left them both slightly breathless, although there was no time for anything more.

“So, I suppose this is welcome to the family, John,” Sherlock said, with wry amusement.

Despite the continuing strangeness of it all, John couldn’t suppress an answering smile. Whatever might become of them all in future, he realised now that he’d always be grateful for the chance meeting that had propelled him into the brothers’ orbit on that fateful day. He’d gone from feeling alone and adrift to discovering there was still a place for him in the world he’d left behind. Where there were, and continued to be, far more things in heaven and earth than he’d ever dreamt of.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Both of you. I think.”

“The pleasure is entirely ours, John,” Mycroft said, smiling now, and leaned over Sherlock to claim a kiss of his own. “Welcome home.”


End file.
